Native American have historical baggage

The argument

Given the historical baggage associated with words like 'brave', 'squaw' and 'warpath', sports teams should be sensitive to the implications of using these words and the impact they have on the Native American community. The point is not that any of these terms is offensive as a matter of dictionary definition, but that words carry the history of how they have been used, and a team name adopts that history along with the word. The word 'squaw' shows how this works. Its origins, from the Massachusett Algonquian tribe, meaning 'female', may have been inoffensive, describing a person and nothing more. But the word has been used throughout history as a derogatory term for a Native American female, and that accumulated use is now inseparable from it. Because meaning is established by usage rather than by etymology, the innocence of the origin does not survive the history: its historical use and the baggage associated with the word mean that it is no longer an inoffensive term. The same applies to the imagery and not only the vocabulary. There is also ample historical baggage attached to the stereotype that Native Americans are brave, warmongering people, and the reason that baggage is heavy is that the stereotype did practical work. The stereotype of Native Americans being war-like, with a ferocious battle ethic and dogged determination for victory, was used to justify genocidal acts of violence at the hands of the US government: a people characterised as inherently warlike could be presented as a standing threat requiring suppression. A mascot that celebrates that same picture as a sporting virtue reproduces the characterisation that served that purpose. Because of the historical baggage associated with depicting Native Americans in this way, sports teams should be more sensitive to the offence their names and mascots cause to the Native American people.

Context

Native Americans have a history of being marginalised and mistreated in the United States. As a result, there is a heightened sensitivity to negative portrayals of their culture and we have the responsibility to avoid compounding the damage by negatively portraying them in pop culture.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Native American people may have a history of being politically marginalized, but their abuse has not come from caricatures and nomenclature. The African American community would be perfectly entitled to take offence if a sports team adopted a caricature bearing an African American likeness as its mascot. African American features were deliberately mocked and caricatures were used as a repressive tool to dehumanise and marginalize the community. However, these have not been employed as tools to marginalize the Native American community. Therefore, the use of a Native American figure as a team’s mascot does not carry historical baggage that would make it offensive.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The three words are not equivalent. "Squaw" is a slur, while "brave" and "warpath" are English-language terms applied to Native people, and the premise treats them as a single category without distinguishing what each carries. [Rejecting P2] The premise concedes the origin was neutral and locates the offence in later usage, which is an argument about that one word rather than about team imagery generally — most of the names at issue do not use it. [Rejecting P3] That a stereotype was used to justify violence establishes the history of the stereotype, not that a particular name or mascot invokes it. The counter-argument presses exactly this gap, holding that caricature was not the instrument by which this community was marginalised.